


drifting

by orphan_account



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Good Parent Jim "Chief" Hopper, Jim "Chief" Hopper Lives, yeah whatever season 4 is coming and we all know he’s alive but I’m impatient so let me live my life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23226670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: how Jim Hopper came back to life.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper & Jim "Chief" Hopper
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> haha yeah so uhhhh starting and abandoning fics/concepts, huh? nah, I’d n e v e r do that!!! haha.. ha. ha...

Jim Hopper is drifting. 

It’s not like the kind of drift when he’s blackout drunk and falling into or out of wakefulness; no, he’s had plenty of experience with that, and this definitely isn’t it. 

When he’s drifting like he is right now, he thinks of... memories. He’s in the darkness, weightless, and then: 

His father had yelled at him. He’d done something wrong again; Hopper couldn’t be sure of what. All of his transgressions had begun to blur together after a little while. Hopper screamed back, words that tumbled out of his mouth without thought. 

He could hear the engine of his buddy’s car outside, lingering around after dropping him off to hear the drama. His friends never offered any help. 

His father hurled a lamp at him and Hopper managed to dodge it. A few shattered pieces bounced off the wall behind him and nicked the bare skin on the backs of his arms. 

More yelling on both sides, and then Hopper’s father had stepped forward and thrown a punch.

The memory fades to black before he can land on the mustard yellow shag carpeting, and Hopper isn’t sure if that happened because he blacked out, or if it was just the drifting place calling out to him. He decides that it doesn’t matter. He submerges himself into another memory, this one much more recent. 

Hopper watched Eleven as she reached for the maple syrup. He’s no chef, but today was one of the rare days he didn’t have to report in early, so he cooked breakfast. French toast, like his mom used to make. 

“Don’t use too much,” he warned. 

El nodded, but drowned her toast in syrup anyway. Hopper considered reprimanding her, but decided against it. 

“So,” he began, “what do you wanna do today?” 

El’s brows furrowedin thought. “Movies and cards?” 

“Sure, kid.” 

There are a few moments of quiet, filled only by the clink of metal forks against cheap glass plates. Her toast had soaked up too much syrup and was rendered impossible to cut through. 

“Hand it over,” he grumbled before El could get too upset. She pouted, but slid the plate over to him. 

It was weird, to have a fatherly instinct for some stray kid who stumbled out of a lab. Still, Hopper couldn’t deny that a feeling of warmth filled him as he easily sliced through the soggy French toast.

If anyone asked, though, he’d blame it on the bright sunlight that poured through the window and down onto the kitchen table. 

The memory fades and Hopper’s left in the drifting place again. He wonders if he’s even alive. He wonders if he cares. He searches for another escape from the cold darkness of the place he’s in now. 

Hopper’s seated at Joyce’s kitchen table. The drawing of the Mind Flayer was laid between them, charcoal from the page smudged on Joyce’s fingertips. Hopper talked to her about Will’s PTSD in low, calm tones. He tried not to remember how it had been— how it was— for him. He tried not to think about how he still had to force himself not to jump at raised voices and flung objects as he placed his hand over the drawing, over Joyce’s hand. He portrayed someone steady, someone secure, someone to turn to when a crisis arose. He wore a mask. 

He wouldn’t be chief of police if he wasn’t good at pushing that shit down, but it took work. Sometimes he still saw his father’s face when he closed his eyes. 

As of late, that face had been replaced with the other threats he’d faced recently. The demogorgon, the demodogs; or at least, that’s what he thought the kids called them. 

He didn’t know which image was worse. When it comes down to to it, a monster is a monster; human skin or weird-ass toothy flower face, it didn’t make much of a difference. Didn’t seem to change his nightmares all that much, anyways. 

Hopper returns to the drifting place each time, until he doesn’t. 

He stood in an ashy facsimile of the Byers’ home. There are still faint traces of letters traced over the walls from two years ago. The fridge is ajar, a black tar-like substance spilling out of it and onto the floor. Hopper felt suddenly dizzy, and reached out a hand to brace himself against the wall. 

It crumbled away under his fingertips and he jerked his hand back hastily, heart in his throat. Underneath it was red, with a sort of pulsating, sickly glow that emanated from it. He pushed against the membrane, testing how much it gave under his fingertips. 

Slowly, Hopper pushed harder, fingers breaking through the material. He grimaced at the feeling of the fluid now that coated his hands, but persisted until he had a gap wide enough to step through. 

Hopper took a deep breath and crossed the barrier.


	2. Chapter 2

The membrane clung to Hopper, long strands of the clear fluid dripping slowly down towards the stubbly carpet of the Byers household. It reminded him, in some corrupted way, of the maple syrup he was constantly restocking in his fridge. 

Like a train, thoughts rushed at him. _How long have I been gone? Where is everyone? Is El okay?_

Hopper took a shaky breath and tried to steady himself. First things first, he needed to minimize the mess he was making. Sure, he'd faced down monsters and criminals and just stepped through some sort of rift between worlds, but there were few things more frightening than pissed off Joyce Byers. Idly, he wondered if she was mad he hadn't been able to make it to the second date. He hoped not. 

The jacket came off first; he had crossed his arms in front of his face when he stepped through, leaving the whole thing covered in the odd substance. He folded it up inside-out. Nothing could be done to salvage the uniform pants, but he rolled up the cuffs to catch any more runoff. Boots next; those he just held by the back loops. His face, thankfully, had been left mostly untouched; his hair was another story, but Hopper'd take what he could get. 

Clothes in hand, he made his way to where he remembered the kitchen to be. No one seemed to be home. Soft morning light filtered through the window above the sink. The soap bar was slightly stuck to the counter next to the sink, and Hopper grunted in annoyance as he pried it free. There was no hand towel in sight, just a few cobwebs lingering around the towel hanger, so he just shook his hands out above the basin. He did find a box stuffed with grocery bags in the lower cabinet at the corner, which he pushed his coat and boots into after finding a few without holes. He turned around, surveying the room. It seemed emptier than he was used to. No sign of Will sitting at the table, or of Jonathan rushing past the space on his way from the back of the house out of the door as he left for school, saying goodbye to Joyce. No sign of Joyce. Hopper sighed, scrubbing his hand over his face. He could almost hear her. God, this shitty town really was ruining his chance of finding happiness. 

Hopper was so engrossed in his feeling of irritation, and under that, the ache of loss, that he almost missed the sound of a key scraping against the door lock, the handle being turned. 

"-just can't really stand being around anymore, you know?" Hopper jolted out of his leaning position against the sink, staring at the entry hall. That was, unmistakably, the voice of the very person he'd been thinking of. "Everything's so different without them around, and the house just feels so- oh my God."

Joyce stood in the entrance of her house, staring at Hopper in shock. The groceries in her hands were slowly slipping out of her fingers, dipping closer to the floor. "I'm gonna have to call you back," she said into some black rectangular thing that was cradled between her shoulder and ear. 

Hopper wasn't sure what to say. _Hey, been missing and maybe not alive for a while, what's the date? Hope everything's been okay while I was gone!_ Yeah, that'd go over well. So, as he tended to do in times like these, he resorted to snark. "The hell is that?"

He wasn't sure what he was expecting. For her to smile, laugh, cry? In all honesty, the slap that she delivered was much more in Joyce's character than some sappy reunion with Sinatra crooning Angel Eyes in the background. He should have seen it coming. 

"Ow," he complained, covering the rapidly reddening cheek with a hand. "The hell was that for?"

"It's a mobile phone. Vodafone came out with it a few months ago, which you'd know if you hadn't _disappeared for seventeen damn months!_ " Joyce's voice shook with emotion. The hand she had slapped him with was cradled against her chest. Past her, on the kitchen threshold, celery and a few apples spilled from the bag across the floor. 

"Well, it looks like a damn brick. How much does it even weigh?" Deflecting, of course. Beating back the wave of dismal thoughts with dry humor was like trying to sail the ocean on a raft, but how else was he supposed to reckon with the knowledge that he'd been in that dark, empty place for a year and a half? 

Joyce's chest shook with an odd noise that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, crossing the distance between them again; but this time, instead of lashing out, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down into a hug. "Hopper," she whispered in his ear, with a laugh so small it almost disappeared in the tiny space between them. Her arms were pressed so tightly it was nearly painful; bony wrists pressed into his neck and around his waist. The fluid from the rift was still wet in his hair, drying tacky and cold on the back of his neck uncomfortably. Joyce's breath was warm on the side of his face, shuddering with each exhalation. 

After a moment, he brought his hands up too. It felt far less awkward than it should have. By all means, bending almost double while covered in otherworldly substance, being clung to by a sobbing woman, should have been the lowest thing on his bucket list. But, with his chin rested on Joyce's shoulder and his hands resting between her shoulder blades, he felt safe for the first time in ages. 

"I thought you'd've had more magnets on your fridge. Y'know, considering all the fuss you put up about them in the summer." He pretended his voice didn't shake when he spoke. 

Joyce pretended that hers didn't, either, when she said "Of _course_ that's what you'd focus on," and then, far more quietly, "I had much more important things on my mind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he cuff him pants 
> 
> my dad, yelling at me  
> my brain, playing the animal crossing: new horizons theme song

**Author's Note:**

> you are the dancing queen   
> young and sweet  
> stuck in quarantine 
> 
> Covid-19 thiefed my senior year but gave me motivation in return, so I guess I can’t complain??? stay safe kids


End file.
